On This Day: President Obama meets with Cabinet members and senior administration officials during a meeting on the BP oil spill in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, May 14, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Today (all times Eastern)

11:45: Jay Carney briefs the press

1:20: The President and First Lady depart the White House

2:30: Arrive New York City

3:25: The President delivers remarks on infrastructure, Tarrytown, NY

5:0: The President Attends a DNC fundraiser, InterContinental Hotel, New York City

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The Week Ahead

Thursday: The President and the First Lady will tour the National September 11th Memorial and Museum; the President will also deliver remarks at the dedication ceremony. Following his remarks, the President and the First Lady will return to Washington, DC.

President Obama travels to New York today to talk about infrastructure and to raise campaign cash. In the early afternoon, Obama journeys to the Tappan Zee Bridge just north of New York City to make his case for new road and bridge construction across the country.

While urging Congress to pass a new transportation plan, Obama will also announce a new executive order designed to streamline the permitting process for federal infrastructure projects.

In the late afternoon and evening, Obama will attend fundraising events for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama will spend the night in New York City, where on Thursday they will help dedicate a 9/11 museum.

President Obama and his administration are focused every day on what we can do to expand opportunity for every American.

In today’s economy, that includes building first class infrastructure that attracts first class jobs and carries goods from American businesses all across the world.

That’s why President Obama has laid out a vision for a 21st century transportation infrastructure that would support current investment plans in all 50 states and build the foundation for lasting economic growth while avoiding Highway Trust Fund insolvency.

That proposal is fully paid for through one time revenue from business tax reforms that will spur investment and create jobs by closing loopholes that reward companies for moving jobs overseas.

LA Times: After decades of exodus, companies returning production to the U.S.

In 2001, Generac Power Systems joined the wave of American companies shifting production to China. The move wiped out 400 jobs in southeast Wisconsin, but few could argue with management’s logic: Chinese companies were offering to make a key component for $100 per unit less than the cost of producing it in the U.S.

Now, however, Generac has brought manufacturing of that component back to its Whitewater plant — creating about 80 jobs in this town of about ‎14,500 people.

The move is part of a sea change in American manufacturing: After three decades of an exodus of production to China and other low-wage countries, companies have sharply curtailed moves abroad. Some, like Generac, have begun to return manufacturing to U.S. shores.

… U.S. factory payrolls have grown for four straight years, with gains totaling about 650,000 jobs. That’s a small fraction of the 6 million lost in the previous decade, but it still marks the biggest and longest stretch of manufacturing increases in a quarter century.

Congressional Republicans spent four years joyfully seizing every opportunity to attack Obamacare and call for its repeal.

No more.

Since the health care law blew past its 7 million sign-ups target last month, Republican leaders have been noticeably more restrained in the way they talk about it, ratcheting down their public calls for repeal. Action has also slowed.

…. In a shift that has been particularly noticeable to congressional reporters, House and Senate Republicans leaders have also steered clear of attacking Obamacare in their opening remarks at press conferences. It used to be unheard of for weekly GOP leadership news conferences to exclude attacks on Obamacare – now it’s common.

It’s simply taken as a given in conservative circles that the Affordable Care Act is awful for the economy, but increasingly, no one else seems to think so.

A Goldman Sachs researcher published a report for clients last week explaining that ACA subsidies bolstered the economy in the first quarter and will do the same this quarter. “While we were initially skeptical of the large estimated effect of the new subsidies on personal income, these now look more reasonable to us in light of revisions, greater enrollment than expected several months ago, and the fact that states are likely contributing to the subsidies on top of the well-known estimates of federal costs,” the report said.

And it’s not just consumers getting a boost. As Jason Millman reported, hospitals are benefiting, too….

Liberal groups – and some Democratic members of Congress – are picking dumb fights with two of President Obama’s judicial nominees. The fights aren’t dumb simply because they are trying to open a fissure when the party needs to close ranks behind the President, but rather because of the actual fights they have picked: in one case displaying the disastrous liberal ideologue propensity against compromise and in another, (of course), the liberal Benghazi: DRONES. Let’s talk about them one by one.

David Barron: Circuit Judge Nominee, First Circuit

One of the president’s nominees is Harvard Law Professor David Barron. His sin against dogmatic liberals? He wrote a Justice Department memo that provided legal grounds for the President to target a terrorist born and bred in America but recruiting for Al Queda in Yemen via drone attack. That has particularly stuck in the craws of the ACLU, who made strange bedfellows with the despicably racist Rand Paul to try to block Barron’s nomination. On second thought, the ACLU and Rand Paul may not be that strange as bedfellows. After all, one can thank the ACLU for arguing to the Supreme Court that money is speech and for giving us the never-ending gift of Citizens United and Koch Brothers.

If left-leaning publications value diversity, why don’t they have any?

On the staff of The American Prospect, I’m the only member of an ethnic minority. That’s not because I bring all the variety the magazine needs, or because the editors don’t think diversity is valuable. Everyone on the masthead of this liberal publication is committed to being inclusive—not just of racial and ethnic minorities but of women; gays, lesbians, and transgender people; and the poor.

It’s not just the Prospect. Journalism upstarts like Vox Media and FiveThirtyEight have come under fire recently for lack of diversity in their hires, but that’s largely because they are drawing from the milky-white pool of “existing talent.” In the corner of the publishing industry that caters to college-educated wonks — a slightly fuzzy designation, but I’ve included most of the publications my colleagues and I read on a daily basis – racial and ethnic diversity is abysmal.

The mainstream media, with the exception of MSNBC, maintains an abysmal record when it comes to diversity, while conservative media don’t even pretend to care. The American Prospect‘s Gabriel Arana took a look at diversity among liberal publications like The Nation, Slate, and Mother Jones, and came away with a raft of excuses from their editors, all of which are pure horseshit. Arana’s own over-complicated analysis eventually gets around to some productive points, but what’s truly revealing are the excuses he elicits from the editors of liberal outlets:

1. They don’t know how white they are.

… The largest staff that Arana reported on was Slate’s, at 75, with five minorities on staff. If you need a report from an advocacy group to tell you that your staff is 94% white, then you also need a seeing-eye dog.

2. It’s a white world, after all.

…. I realize Arana put “existing talent” in scare-quotes, but this is an unwitting summation of the entire problem: of course, minority talent “exists,” it’s just invisible to these people.

Jay Carney, Legend:

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ThinkProgress: Finally, A Network Created A Primetime Lineup That Looks More Like America

It’s upfront season, friends. A time when all the television networks announce their big, bold plans for the upcoming year, release teaser-trailers of new shows, make promises about those that will return, and cancel everything you love….

Some good news out of the upfronts: anyone who gets excited about increased diversity in the usually white-as-the-driven-snow landscape that is network TV is going to be psyched about what ABC has planned for next year.

…. this is so much more than just talk: ABC is actually investing significant money in the belief that shows featuring diverse casts can be just as successful as the rest of the pack. They’re tapping into a market that is mostly ignored and, if they succeed, could become trendsetters for the rest of the industry.

Okay, this made me laugh – very loudly:

LOLGOP: Michigan’s U.S. Senate race is now one of the most important elections in the country

A willingness to confront reality is on the ballot

Rep. Gary Peters has become the first U.S. candidate in a close race to call out his Republican opponent’s stand on global warming.

“This is something elected officials should be talking about — we have to be concerned about it,” Peters told The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent. “Certainly the voters would like to know where she is. It’s a major issue. I think the science shows overwhelmingly that human activities have contributed a great deal towards climate change.”

… If a Democrat can win by challenging his opponent’s science know-nothingness in an off-year, it means the GOP’s hopes of making the state competitive in a presidential year with their current views on climate change are dead.

On This Day

Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards participate in a rally at Van Andel Arena, May 14, 2008 in Grand Rapids, MI. Former U.S. Senator Edwards announced that was endorsing Obama for Democratic nominee.

Sen. Obama speaks at Macomb Community College, May 14, 2008 in Warren, MI

Sen. Obama holds seven month old Kabian Allen after speaking at Macomb Community College, May 14, 2008 in Warren, MI.

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President Obama talks with baseball great Willie Mays aboard Air Force One en route to the MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis, July 14, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama disembarks from Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base after a trip to New Mexico, May 14, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama points to a member of the audience at a town hall style meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, May 14, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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President Obama, wearing a bow tie similar to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, tapes a message regarding the justice’s retirement in the Map Room of the White House, May 14, 2010 (Photo by Samantha Appleton)

President Obama congratulates the 2010 National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) TOP COPS award winners in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on May 14, 2010. With him is Attorney General Eric Holder

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Valet Paul Reyna, right, and Trip Director Marvin Nicholson assist President Obama with his academic regalia before the Barnard College commencement address, on the campus of Columbia University in New York, N.Y., May 14, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama leaves the stage after delivering the Barnard College commencement address, on the campus of Columbia University in New York, N.Y., May 14, 2012 (Photo by Pete Souza)